94 The Geert Wilders Effect

Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who heads a influential ‘single issue’ party in the Dutch parliament. His ‘single issue’ is ridding Europe and in particular The Netherlands of everything Islamic. As even he recognizes that it is democratically impossible, he attacks the religion relentlessly within the boundaries of the law and freedom of expression, but not within the boundaries of human decency. Among his proposals: to scrap article one of the Dutch constitution the non-discrimination principle, closing the borders for non-western immigrants and putting a moratorium on the opening of Islamic schools and mosques both for at least 5 years, a ban on foreign Imams and preaching in other languages but Dutch, that Muslims if they want to stay in The Netherlands are only allowed to read a censured version of the Koran and a tax of Euro 1000,- on the wearing of the Hidjab. He also likened the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, called the Prophet Mohammed a child molester and a pig, opinionated that ‘we’ are suffering from an invasion of ‘Islam’ which aim it is to transform The Netherlands into ‘Nederarabia’ a province of an Islamic super state Eurabia (this last remark is quite funny really). There are a lot of people who vote for him (his party is the second largest in parliament) because ‘he dares to say it instead of covering the ‘truth’ with soothing words and denials’. A majority of Dutch people believe in one way or the other that Islam forms a real thread against ‘our culture’. They believe that Islam is intrinsically violent and threatens our ‘freedom’ and our ‘democratic rights’. Is that really true? Does Islam stands for forced conversions, dictatorship, violence against women and the killing of anybody who isn’t a ‘true’ believer? I’d better find out and I finally took Dawood’s translation of the Koran from the shelf.